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Thousands rally in Washington to protest Keystone pipeline

Tens of thousands of people converged on the National Mall on Sunday to urge President Barack Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline, a project they say will cause irreparable damage to the climate.

The rally, which was organized by the Sierra Club, 350.org and the Hip Hop Caucus, was billed as the largest climate rally in American history. Organizers estimated that about 35,000 people participated in the rally. The U.S. Park Police does not give crowd estimates.

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“All I ever wanted to see was a movement of people to stop climate change and now I’ve seen it,” Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, said to the crowd of protesters, who traveled to Washington from dozens of states. “I cannot promise you we’re going to win, but I’ve waited a quarter century to find out if we were gonna fight. And today, at the biggest climate rally by far, by far, by far, in U.S. history — today, I know we’re going to fight.”

Temperatures dropped to the low 30s Sunday afternoon as participants danced and cheered and waved signs protesting the Keystone XL pipeline, which will carry oil from Alberta’s oil sands down through Cushing, Okla., and on to refineries along the Gulf Coast.

The State Department, which will make a recommendation to the president on whether to approve the pipeline, has said that its evaluation process will not be complete until after March.

Banners and speakers whipped in the 26-mile-per-hour winds around the stage near the Washington Monument as protesters donned hoods and gloves to shield themselves from the chilly weather.

Climate activists have said constructing the pipeline would enable oil companies to expand production from western Canada’s massive oil sands fields, and that the thick tar-like material requires processing that leads to far higher greenhouse gas emissions than from typical oil production.

Van Jones, founder of Rebuild the Dream and former Obama special adviser for green jobs, said Obama’s recent comments on climate change in his inaugural address and the State of the Union were welcome, but climate activists must hold the president accountable to ensure he follows through.

“I don’t have any reason to believe at this point that the pipeline won’t go through,” Jones said. “I think if you look at the status quo, the big polluters tend to win these fights. They’ve got the big money. They’ve got the big lobbyists and they tend to win these fights. And that’s why the people have to come out.”

In a statement, TransCanada, the company that is hoping to build the pipeline, said it agreed that a transition to more sustainable energy source was needed, but that shift would take decades, and its project was being unfairly demonized.

“The oil sands and their greenhouse gas emissions' impact have been overstated. As the respected Nature science journal stated the other week, Keystone XL will not determine whether or not the oil sands will be developed. Nor is oil from the oil sands as ‘dirty’ as many believe,” a company spokesman said in an email Sunday.

Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who helped launch the Safe Climate Caucus — a group of legislators who plan to speak on the floor routinely about climate change — said that events like the one Sunday are necessary to move the conversation forward on climate change, loosen the effect of industry lobbying dollars and get a strong regulatory agenda out of the executive branch.

“It sends a message to Congress that we’re here, we care and this is an issue that matters. And it sends a message to the president to be strong and we’ll have your back,” he said.